shelter as their vet.
“Go on,” Winter tried again.
I knew she already knew the answer, and so did I, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. Out of all my friends, I’d been the only one to share at the time what I’d written down. They’d all chickened out.
“When I was sixteen, all kinds of things were going on in my life, and I didn’t know any better, and I seriously didn’t give this any thought.” I scowled, feeling a gnawing sensation in my belly. I didn’t want to believe that something I’d scribbled with my teenage friends could have impacted my entire dating life for the last fourteen years.
“Fine. I’ll read mine,” Winter announced, grabbing her reading glasses from her purse and sliding them on. “Can you believe I’m at the stage where I need reading glasses?”
Arie chuckled and grabbed her own pair out of her bag. “Why, yes, I can. It’s what happens when you’re heading in the direction we’re going.”
I smoothed my blonde hair and let out a sigh of relief.
“But there is a perk.” Winter grinned. “I can’t see my wrinkles.”
We laughed, and she cleared her throat, looking down at the aged pages from a decade and a half ago.
“I hereby swear I will never marry a man with tattoos, who drives a motorcycle, who loves to ski, who cooks, has brown hair, lives on a beach, has lots of money, or has kids.” She sucked in a breath. “I vow to never marry a man like my father.”
Silence fell over our table, and Samantha reached for Winter’s hand.
“I do believe I’ve managed to avoid all of those pitfalls.” Winter looked at me and smiled.
“Yes. God forbid you were to marry a man who cooks.” I smiled back, trying to make light of a rather serious declaration.
“Or has lots of money and lives on a beach,” Arie added and pretended to shiver. “The horrors.”
Winter chuckled.
“But the father thing I get,” Samantha said sympathetically.
“Me too.” I nodded, my eyes connecting with Winter’s. Just because my dad was great, didn’t make all dads equal.
“Daddy issues are the worst.” Arie shook her head solemnly.
“I don’t have daddy issues.” Winter laughed. “Do I?”
I chuckled, putting my head on the table briefly. “We’re doomed.”
Even when I was growing up, I was able to figure out that Winter’s home life was rocky. It wasn’t that she didn’t live in a spectacular home with her parents or have incredible cars parked in their driveway that carried expensive purchases from magnificent shopping sprees.
The problem was that her parents fought like cats and dogs, but that was only when her father wasn’t busy staying with one of his many mistresses.
And the reason Winter hated a house on a beach was that she and her mother had walked into their beach vacation home with Winter’s father in bed, ass up, with another woman. Winter also saw, for the first time, that her father had a tattoo on his butt cheek that had forever scarred her.
No teenage girl should ever have to see her dad’s bare butt, especially up in the air where it doesn’t belong with someone who shouldn’t be clutching it, digging her bright red nails into his pale flesh.
The image was bored into my memory almost as harshly as Winter’s because I was the first friend she’d told all about it, sobbing into the phone.
Winter had stayed at my house for weeks after that. To say she was traumatized was putting it mildly, but even fourteen years later, I never knew what that tattoo was. It never seemed like the right time to ask, and now probably wasn’t the moment either, but I couldn’t resist.
“What was the tattoo of?” I shut my mouth the moment the words flew out, wishing I hadn’t asked. The second I saw a glint of humor in her gaze, I knew it was okay.
Winter shook her head, but she started laughing. “An anchor with red roses wrapped around it and a pair of skis propped next to the roses. Underneath, it read, Anchors Don’t Weigh Me Down.”
I hid a snicker.
“Wait—roses?” Samantha asked, giggling.
“Roses? I’m stuck on the anchor and skis.” Arie laughed.
“I tried to look away, but the image is burned into my memory.” She shuddered, laughing.
“I think the whole combo is priceless.” I laughed and let out a happy sigh. “Well, I always wondered why you didn’t like skiing or men who skied.”
She smiled and pursed her lips. “Well, now you know.”
“Was your dad in the navy?”